There was once a fisherman who the Sultan favored for he was old and, despite this, he did all he could to support his little family. The Sultan always made a point to buy from the fisherman even if the fish seemed unappetizing. One day he arrived to the fish market and could not find the fisherman. The next day, though, he had returned to the market with a catch the Sultan had never seen before. These fish were the size of a man and were brightly colored with intricate designs. The Sultan was so impressed he bought them all and placed them in his personal garden pool. One day while sitting in the garden he began to examine the fish closely, and recognized something on their tails. He examined closer and realized it was the emblem of a kingdom that, by myth, had suddenly disappeared out of thin air. He immediately returned to the market and told the fisherman that he would make him one of his royal viziers if he would lead him to the water source where he caught the fish.
The fisherman agreed and led the Sultan and his traveling party to a discrete location in the desert. The Sultan ordered his party to rest while he surveyed the land. He made way to the water, and when peering in he saw hundreds of thousands of the fish similar to those in the garden pond, all with the mark of the emblem. Viewing the bottom of the lake was impossible for the fish population was so dense.
Suddenly the Sultan heard someone crying from a nearby distance. He began to walk towards the noise when all of a sudden a grand palace appeared in front of him out of nowhere. Amazed by what had just occurred, he continued into the palace following the weeping. He took notice that there were no servants to be found, and when he turned a corner he was startled at what he saw. A young King was sitting in a small body of water and the bottom half of his body resembled the tails of the fish in the lake. When the King saw the Sultan he was elated for he had not seen another person in many years. The Sultan asked what had happened to him, and questioned why he was half fish. The King explained that he had married an enchantress that was greedy with her power. She placed a love spell on him and they were shortly married. He was so influenced by the spell he gave her charge of half of the kingdom, making her his equal. While she was plotting her takeover of the entire kingdom, her favorite servants was found stealing from the royal treasury and he was severely punished by the King. She became so angry she decided to place a spell on the town essentially freezing time, and turned all the inhabitants to immortal simple fish. She vowed all will remain this way until she found a spell to cure her beloved servant. She made the King only half of a fish so she could torture him, and she visited everyday to scold him gingerly for harming her servant.
(This actually the Hindu avatar Matsya, but I though he looked cool and it gives the readers insight on what the King could have looked like. Wikipedia)
After hearing the story of the young King, the Sultan was determined to help him regain his kingdom. He asked what he could do. The King replied, "In one one of the rooms of this palace is a library holding books on the Queens magic. I'm sure you can find a spell or a potion to help us." The Sultan went in search of the library and quickly found it. He found a recipe for a mind control potion and worked tirelessly through the night to create it. The next morning he covered himself in an invisibility potion and waited for the Queen's arrival. When she was done punishing the King, the Sultan followed her back to her home nearby. He found the injured servant, lying on a bed, and went to work as soon as she left to once again search for a cure. The Sultan approached the servant's body, helped him drink the mind control potion, then sat nearby waiting for the Queen to return. Upon her return she asked if the servant would utter a few words to her (she did this every evening with no response). Suddenly the servant sat up, under the control of the Sultan, and stated, "I am better master, but I have requests in order to fully regain my strength." "Go on!" the Queen said, "Anything you ask I will do." The servant began, " I need the service of the king's physicians, the ones you have turned into fish, and I request that you return the kingdom to normal." He continued, "Once you have done this, I ask that you return the King to his normal form and have him command the physicians to find a cure for my wounds." Lastly he relayed, "At last when you have completed theses tasks I wish for you create and entity out of your magic and bottle him up, making you a normal woman." The Queen, ecstatic that her beloved servant had spoken to her, went out and immediately did as he had asked. When she returned and bottled up her magic, she unintentionally created the first genie.
When the kingdom had been returned to normal, the Sultan requested that the king order his royal physicians to cure the servant's wounds and he did. The Queen was removed from her position, and was banished from the kingdom and she did not object She and her servant traveled to a distant town and were eventually married. The Sultan and the young King remained great friends, and since the Sultan was very old, and without a heir, they united the kingdoms and the King ruled all. Lastly, the old fisherman was rewarded graciously for finding the lake and freeing all of the citizens and restoring the kingdom.
Author's Note:
For this week I decided to retell the combined stories of the Sultan and the Fish and King of the Black Isles. In the notes for the Unit, it told how the fishes unique features, that impressed the Sultan, would be left out. This sort of bothered me, and I decided to retell the story with my own interpretations placed in sporadic places.
Bibliography:
Book title: The Arabian Nights' Entertainment
Author: Andrew Lang
Year Published: 1898
Web Source: Sacred Texts
Very Interesting Story! I really like that the end of the story gave recognition to the fisherman, seems like he deserves some :) Also, I really enjoyed that the story explained how the first genie came about. I have always sort of wondered how that would be possible, so thanks for the explanation! The story was very great and effective. I was definitely drawn in, especially in the middle when you were explain the how the King became half fish and half man. That was super! I really enjoyed the reading!
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